


Evening

by betweenthebliss



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: First War with Voldemort, Gen, POV First Person, Prompt Fic, under 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthebliss/pseuds/betweenthebliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the boring rituals are all that keeps you alive.</p><p>This was written for a round-robin drabble project I did with some friends; the prompt was to finish a sentence beginning with "Evening was the time for..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evening

Evening was the time for rituals-- habits, you know, repeated actions. They'll save your life, mark my words. When I got home those nights-- presuming I got to go home at all-- I'd check my wards and then check them again, on every door and window and chimney in the place. Then I'd have dinner. Cold duck or a sandwich, fish and chips if it was Tuesday. I'm a pretty good cook if you can believe it-- had to be, making do for myself all these years, not as if I'm going to trust anyone but myself with fixing my food.

After dinner I'd put on the kettle and look over my gear. Potions kit, full; disguise kit, nothing misplaced or shabby-looking; Invisibility cloak, no rips or stains; wand, cleaned and functional; and then of course the Dark detectors. People say I'm mad to keep them but they've saved me dozens of times. You just have to get to know the ones that are yours, know how they work and when they work best. I'd sooner give up the rest of my nose than that Foe-Glass, and don't think I'm exaggerating.

By the time my gear was stowed the kettle would've boiled over and I'd have my Darjeeling steeping-- the good kind, straight from India with no stops in between, in that fancy china cup Minerva got me for Christmas in '77. I'd Floo someone or write a letter-- Dumbledore or my niece down in Kent, Diggle's daughter; sometimes the mad hatted man himself if he wasn't away on Ministry business or setting off fireworks for one of his obscure holidays. Got to keep in touch, keep people posted, the right people, so they'd know if I was taken or Imperiused or killed. Wartime's a tough business but it's what I do, you understand. The austerity, the regime you keep to, it's not the romance and dramatic spy thriller everyone imagines it to be.

Lonely, you ask? Ha. Of course it's lonely, it's the most miserable boredom in the world, but _it's what I do_. It's what anyone does if they're serious about survival, and after a while you learn to forget that life was ever any other way. It's as simple as waiting for the next thing on the list-- the feel of your Invisibility cloak as familiar as your own skin, the whistle of the kettle, the taste of soot in your nose when you pull your head out of the fireplace-- simple and boring and lonely as the devil, but in wartime you learn to do away with the niceties in favor of staying alive.


End file.
